Weekly Update- 1/28

Well we made it through the week with only a delayed opening!  We were able to accomplish much more this week than last week!

In math we are in the middle of chapter 6.  We are continuing to work with our multiplication facts.  The students are doing a great job memorizing their facts!  Each of the students has an index card on which they keep track of their progress by writing down their time and their score each time we take a timed test.  The students are very eager to improve and have been studying hard!  We will be having our chapter test next Thursday.  Instead of moving onto chapter 7 which focuses on division, we are going to be skipping to chapter 8: geometry and measurement.  This will give the students more time to practice their multiplication facts before starting division.

In Social Studies we started learning about government.  We created a class word web and wrote down all of the words that we think of when we hear the word "government".  We talked about the meaning of the words in the Pledge of Allegiance and the Star Spangled Banner.  We also talked about how the Star Spangled Banner became our National Anthem.  In addition, we started learning about local government, who is in charge of it, and how it works.

In shared reading we read the fantasy story, An Amazing Journey.  We practiced making predictions using the cover illustration and the table of contents.  We also learned about how and why italics are used in writing.  The students practiced tracking dialogue in the story as well.  In guided reading we practiced using nonfiction text features (headings, captions, maps, diagrams, labels, bold words, etc.) to help understand the text.

In writing the students wrote free verse poems.  The students used some of the techniques that we learned about 2 weeks ago in shared reading.  These techniques included alliteration and onomatopoeia.  They really enjoyed writing their free verse poems because there were no rules to follow!  The students shared their poems with their classmates today.

In Fundations we have started unit 7.  This unit focuses on adding suffixes to words that end in y.  The students are practicing changing the y to an i before adding a suffix (unless the suffix also begins with an i).

In Spanish we continued to practice our color words.  In our grammar lessons the students practiced changing singular nouns to plural nouns.  This week we focused on words that have to change their spelling to become plural (child- children, man- men, person- people, mouse- mice, etc.)  The students also earned another class reward for good behavior!

Have a great weekend!